Year 12 Biology Trip to St. Kilda

Year 12 Biology students braved the harsh coastal Otago elements in the name of Science on Monday March 3rd. Despite gloomy conditions, wind and rain, Mrs Cooney and Ms Lach’s classes scaled steep dunes and traipsed through treacherous vegetation along transects in order to collect data for their upcoming internal assessment.

The St. Kilda dunes provided excellent data to ponder and ruminate over. The key question students had to consider was whether or not they could see patterns in the vegetation as they moved from high tide mark to the tops of the dune systems. Vegetation ranged from low lying marram grass to 3 meter high coprosma repens bushes with contorted, impenetrable branches, which cause some difficulty when needing to collect data!

Students gained first-hand experience in ecological research methodology and became very familiar with local coastal plant species that we often just walk straight past on our way to the beach. Equipped with transect lines, quadrats, light meters, and good old fashioned pencil and paper, students were able to explore the environment’s biotic and abiotic factors. Once back at school, they processed their data into kite diagrams and conducted pH tests on their sand and soil samples. We wish the students the best of luck in the next few weeks as they turn their findings into comprehensive reports.